What is it with Joe Gibbs labels? Did they only ever employ people who couldn't put them on straight!There's always a mad dash to lift the needle before it goes skidding over the paper making a terrible noise.One of the quirks of Ja vinyl I guess.Mark T

HAHAHA I noticed that too. but actually, for the most part, Gibbs put out great mastered products, used good vinyl, nice packaging.I've noticed that 70's channel one 45's in particular,scratch, or sound scratchy very easily...even cleaner looking 45's sound scratchy!

Well they certainly have a great sound but there are so many records with pressing flaws - I have a lovely looking copy of Dillinger Tribal War that has a terrible hiss all the way through - gotta love 'em though.Mark T

I bought an album from a seller on eBay a few years ago - not Joe Gibbs related - when it arrived I found the label on side 2 was way off centre, covering the last two tracks (funnily enough they didn't play too badly). I complained to the seller who said it probably made the record more valuable as there probably wasn't another like it. Gotta admire his cheek really

Mark T wrote:What is it with Joe Gibbs labels? Did they only ever employ people who couldn't put them on straight!There's always a mad dash to lift the needle before it goes skidding over the paper making a terrible noise.One of the quirks of Ja vinyl I guess.Mark T

I think it's just uneven Marmalade - good and bad pressing all through the years but I agree there definitely are some hissy ones from that period. There's a poster from Holland on here who would probably know best as he has a ton of Joe Gibbs singles.Mark T

the brown/yellow Joe Gibbs Record Globe labels usually sound very hissy. Have never come accross a good sounding copy of Mighty Diamonds' "Keep on Moving' for instance.Also the yellow Crazy Beats, like Nooks 'Tribal War' and Shortie's 'School" always tend to sound a bit distant. Other than that, never had much problems. The early stuff sounds great and well heavy.

about a decade ago I had several mint stock copies of Majestic dub (yellow red Joe Gibbs label) They were vinyl-wise all completely flawless. Except for a weird disco boogie woogie tune on it which was not included on the later repress.

edgar wrote:about a decade ago I had several mint stock copies of Majestic dub (yellow red Joe Gibbs label) They were vinyl-wise all completely flawless. Except for a weird disco boogie woogie tune on it which was not included on the later repress.

i think that will be Bionic Encounter, left off laters ones and on some cd's.i think the track had copyright issues.Nick

Cold Sweat wrote:the brown/yellow Joe Gibbs Record Globe labels usually sound very hissy. Have never come accross a good sounding copy of Mighty Diamonds' "Keep on Moving' for instance.Also the yellow Crazy Beats, like Nooks 'Tribal War' and Shortie's 'School" always tend to sound a bit distant. Other than that, never had much problems. The early stuff sounds great and well heavy.

I think I agree with you their Cold sweat brown and yellow seemed to have problems ie prince hammer Dreadlocks thing, Althea's Downtown thing and Mighty Diamonds Keep on moving..but i do have good copies of each so they are out there, but with the way some folks grade you never seem to know until they arrive and on your deck.Nick

like all JA vinyl - joe gibbs pressings can be a bit hit and miss - but I've found them better than most oer the years - originals from the mid to late 70's might look a little rough but are pressed with deep groves and sound well crisp with good separation - an original copy of one of the dub LP's will usually sound better than the UK issue or any later reissue

they seemed to go through a period when they were pressing 12"s in florida and they all were warpy and many sounded like your stylus was riding between grooves instead of in them. I stopped buying them back then because of it. then one time ernie b had a whole ton of them cheap and I bought up some of them...same thing: warpy and crappy sounding. plus I never did really love most joe gibbs productions: he used a lot of cheap gimmicks and his DJ chanters were uniformly poor if you ask me...many a 12" was ruined by the DJ extension...many will disagree I am sure.

about grading though, I refuse to take actual sound into my grading because its ja vinyl and that should say it all. "store stock" is a term I picked up somewhere and that describes it well: they are what you would buy in a store and take home to find out whether it is listenable or not. what it also means is that the record has not been abused since purchase new, but the quality may have been lacking right from the pressing plant. I am too much of a perfectionist to try to include this variable in my grading, they all sound sh*t to me if I get too picky about it and people just have to know if they buy ja vinyl its gonna be a crapshoot as to quality, just like it was when I bought the records new from the shop.